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In the past week, one regulation has forced many people in China to say goodbye to long-standing “relationships”. As of July 15, the government placed artificial intelligence (AI) companions under tight supervision. It comes as automated companions have experienced something of a boom over the past few years. According to the rules, AI-human interactions should not encourage violence or harm users...
Fresh tensions flared near a disputed South China Sea shoal on Thursday, after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned his Philippine counterpart of “bitter consequences” if Manila provoked Beijing with outside backing. China’s coastguard said it drove away two Philippine government vessels near Scarborough Shoal. In a statement released on Thursday, coastguard spokesman Jiang Lue said the ships “...
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Wednesday warned his Philippine counterpart that Manila would “bear the bitter consequences” if it tried to provoke Beijing with the help of other countries. Wang made the remark as he lodged a “strong protest” during talks with Theresa Lazaro, the Philippines’ top diplomat, in Manila over what he called an “aggressive act of ramming a Chinese law enforcement ve...
South Korean prosecutors have charged Korean-American professor Morse Tan for criminal defamation over false claims targeting President Lee Jae Myung. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office reportedly indicted Tan without detention on Thursday on multiple defamation charges. Tan, who served as the US ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice under the first Donald Trump administratio...
China has brought online a record-breaking particle accelerator that can produce the world’s most intense beams of charged atoms. It gives scientists a new tool to create previously unknown atomic nuclei and advance research on cancer treatment and spacecraft materials. Scientific operations have now begun at the 2.6 billion yuan (US$384.1 million) facility in Huizhou, Guangdong province after con...
A monkey disrupted peak-hour train services in Hong Kong for nearly an hour on Thursday morning after straying onto the tracks near a busy MTR station. Rail operator MTR Corporation said an animal had made its way onto the tracks near Kowloon Bay station, prompting Kwun Tong line trains to run at reduced speeds. While train frequency was unaffected, overall journey times increased by five to eight...
Hong Kong’s new legislation on end-of-life directives could create significant operational challenges, including verifying patients’ wishes in emergencies and affordability barriers for low-income families, according to frontline responders and patient advocates. The warnings come a week before the Advance Decision on Life-sustaining Treatment Ordinance takes effect next Friday. Under the law, a f...
Hong Kong’s new legislation on end-of-life directives could create significant operational challenges, including verifying patients’ wishes in emergencies and affordability barriers for low-income families, according to frontline responders and patient advocates. The warnings come a week before the Advance Decision on Life-sustaining Treatment Ordinance takes effect next Friday. Under the law, a f...
The Iranian-aligned Houthis said on Thursday they struck two Saudi oil tankers as part of a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, threatening to create a second chokepoint on global oil supplies alongside Iran’s near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile the US military said on Wednesday it launched a new round of strikes on Iran at President Donald Trump’s direction, marking a 12th successive nig...
The Iranian-aligned Houthis on Thursday claimed military strikes on two Saudi oil tankers as part of a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, further raising the risk of a second chokehold on world oil supplies at the Red Sea in coordination with Iran’s attempt to control the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile the US military said on Wednesday it launched a new round of strikes on Iran at President Donald Trum...
China’s private securities investment funds surpassed 8 trillion yuan (US$1.2 trillion) for the first time at the end of June, emerging as the core engine driving the expansion of the country’s entire private fund industry, according to the Asset Management Association of China. Propelled by the huge growth in securities funds, assets under management in the broader private fund industry hit a rec...
A South Korean court’s conviction of Seoul’s mayor for illegal polling payments threatens to put an end to his presidential ambitions just weeks after he won a historic fifth term. Oh Se-hoon, the 65-year-old conservative who has led South Korea’s capital on and off for nearly two decades, was fined 10 million won (US$6,800) on Wednesday for violating the Political Funds Act ahead of the mayoral b...
US President Donald Trump’s administration will redirect billions of dollars in federal research funding away from universities to individual scientists and AI-focused projects, arguing the overhaul is needed to help the US compete with China. The plan, outlined in a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy report released on Tuesday, comes as the administration warns that China has rea...
US lawmakers are examining tariffs, port fees and sanctions targeting China’s shipbuilding industry, as US Congress searches for ways to rebuild America’s severely diminished commercial fleet without increasing costs for US importers and consumers. At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday, members of both parties described China’s dominance of commercial shipbuilding as an economi...
The US on Wednesday announced a landmark deal with Saudi Arabia that would establish a civilian nuclear programme in the Gulf country, with Washington insisting the agreement includes safeguards against non-proliferation. The move comes as the US under President Donald Trump fights a war with Iran that began in large part over concerns with Tehran’s nuclear programme – an issue that remains a key ...
After Donald Trump’s high-stakes summit with Xi Jinping in May, the idea of US-China “strategic stability” appeared in readouts from both sides. While the White House framed this vision as a “constructive relationship of strategic stability on the basis of fairness and reciprocity”, Beijing said only that it was a “constructive bilateral relationship of strategic stability”. China watchers zoomed ...
Chile wants to widen the group of countries buying its copper and attract about US$100 billion in mining investment over the next decade, its foreign minister said on Wednesday, in the most explicit move yet by the new government in Santiago to reduce its exposure to Chinese demand. “The market is highly concentrated and we need to broaden the number of places that buy our copper,” Francisco Perez...
Washington is still not receiving sufficient critical mineral exports from China, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Wednesday, even as top American and Chinese officials met to finalise key economic deliverables for President Xi Jinping’s expected visit to the White House. “We are getting a flow of critical minerals from China. It’s not as much as we would want. It’s not at the pace w...
In April 1955, amid the Cold War, 304 representatives across 29 Asian and African nations convened in Bandung, Indonesia, to discuss the principles of a more complex future world order. Among them were India, China and host Indonesia. While India would go on to champion the non-aligned movement at the 1961 Belgrade Conference, Mao Zedong’s China and Sukarno’s Indonesia were more sceptical of the c...
The man convicted of trying to kill Salman Rushdie spent years researching the writer’s whereabouts before stabbing him on a lecture stage, federal prosecutors said Wednesday at the opening of his federal terrorism trial. It is a second trial for Hadi Matar, who was found guilty in a New York state attempted murder case last year. The federal terror charges focus more on Matar’s alleged motive for...
Lawmakers called out China’s growing footprint at the United Nations on Wednesday as a vehicle for espionage even as a Congressional hearing over its funding descended into a heated partisan battle over the Iran war started by US President Donald Trump. “The Chinese peacekeeping department is concentrated in strategically sensitive regions, including areas along Belt and Road [Initiative] corridor...
The Trump administration has accused Chinese start-up Moonshot AI of covertly extracting capabilities from leading US artificial intelligence models and obtaining restricted Nvidia chips abroad, escalating Washington’s scrutiny of the company following the release of its powerful Kimi K3 model. Michael Kratsios, the White House science and technology adviser, alleged on Wednesday that the Beijing-...
Criminal syndicates increasingly turned from targeting Chinese nationals to Americans after Beijing’s 2023 crackdown on online scams in Southeast Asia, analysts said on Wednesday, triggering a global game of “whack-a-mole”. “China has a huge advantage and a head start in terms of trying to protect its own citizens from scams compared to the US,” said Sue-Lin Wong, who hosts the Scam Inc. podcast, ...
A French modelling scout with close ties to convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has been found dead at his home outside Paris, prosecutors and his lawyer said on Wednesday. Under investigation in France, Daniel Siad, 69, was one of several French men accused of aiding the US financier to traffic and abuse women. Siad had not yet been questioned by investigators, but had denied the allegation...
A French modelling scout with close ties to convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has been found dead at his home outside Paris, prosecutors and his lawyer said on Wednesday. Under investigation in France, Daniel Siad, 69, was one of several French men accused of aiding the US financier to traffic and abuse women. Siad had not yet been questioned by investigators, but had denied the allegation...
A French modelling scout with close ties to convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has been found dead at his home outside Paris, prosecutors and his lawyer said on Wednesday. Under investigation in France, Daniel Siad, 69, was one of several French men accused of aiding the US financier to traffic and abuse women. Siad had not yet been questioned by investigators, but had denied the allegation...
From humble origins as a family business run out of an apartment near Moscow, Wildberries has grown in under two decades into Russia’s top online retailer and a key economic driver in the country. It has now become a target of strikes by Ukraine. Ukraine has attacked four Wildberries warehouses over the last week in a widening campaign of drone strikes against a company at the heart of Russia’s ...
From humble origins as a family business run out of an apartment near Moscow, Wildberries has grown in under two decades into Russia’s top online retailer and a key economic driver in the country. It has now become a target of strikes by Ukraine. Ukraine has attacked four Wildberries warehouses over the last week in a widening campaign of drone strikes against a company at the heart of Russia’s ...
Hong Kong authorities have warned of possible enforcement action after mainland Chinese dental chains were suspected of operating illegally in the city, as local industry leaders called for tighter supervision. The Hong Kong Dental Association also said on Wednesday a poll of local practitioners found that each dentist needed to follow up on an average of four cases a month relating to treatment r...
[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] For a growing number of Hong Kong millionaire respondents, the mainland Greater Bay Area (GBA) cities becoming part of later-life planning, from healthcare access and living space to retirement lifestyle. Yet many have not fully worked out the financial demands of maintaining a life across Hong Kong and mainland GBA cities...
